00:03
Anna Eckhoff
I chose a painting from Vilhelm Hammershøi, titled Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor. It's divided into three pieces. To the left, you have his wife, Ida, seen from behind in this room in Strandgade. You have the window in the middle, and the sunlight is coming in, casting a shadow on the floor. And then to the right, you have a door. The painting is in black and white and brown colors, almost like photography.

00:39
Anna Eckhoff
I like the left part of the painting where Ida is sitting because you can somehow hide there and you don't have to be exposed and I feel calm when I see her part. You can just hide over there in the dark side of the room.

00:57
Anna Eckhoff
When I'm going out with my book and making all these book talks, I'm so exposed sometimes, and sometimes the audience likes me and sometimes they don't like me. I just feel exposed because I'm telling about my own life. And being able to hide in the corner of this room in the dark, it would be nice and not having to show my face.

01:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Anna Eckhoff, a Danish writer, IT manager, administration manager, and adventurer. Welcome, Anna.

01:55
Anna Eckhoff
Thank you.

01:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
We meet you here in Los Angeles. Your book is now published in English and called A New Beginning, The Life on the Front Lines. What made you decide that you wanted to have it translated and what do you think that the American audiences in particular can take away from it?

02:12
Anna Eckhoff
First of all, I wanted to write a book about my life the last 15 years where I lived in the Middle East and Afghanistan. And the reason why I wanted to write a book was because you can tell about your experiences and your considerations, why did you do what you did. And I had this book finished in Danish two years after I came back from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Denmark.

02:38
Anna Eckhoff
And then my publisher and I, we decided to publish the book in America too, because we thought there would be a market in America because they had the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and they're also involved in the conflict in Palestine, Israel right now. So we thought there might be of interest for the American people to read the book.

02:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
The book is on my table right now. And there's a picture of Israel that you mentioned on the cover. Talk about the choice of having a picture of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount on the cover. You describe it as one of the greatest obstacles to lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Why this picture?

03:19
Anna Eckhoff
The first edition of the Danish book, it was with a picture of me and I'm totally unknown and it was not fascinating with me on the front page. And then my publisher, she said, it has to be a front page with a Middle East town city, and there should be some kind of a mosque on this picture. And the only picture I had, it's my own picture, was the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. And I was afraid it would be too challenging to have the Dome of the Rock because it's very political wise if you show —

03:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Controversial, maybe.

03:59
Anna Eckhoff
Yeah, controversial, if you show the Dome of the Rock on the front page. But it's so nice a picture, so we decided to go for it anyway. And now it's just the right thing to do, have it on the front page, because everything is happening there, it's the center of the world now.

04:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it's a beautiful mosque too. The book is about your lifelong longing for adventure, and it describes how it was part of your life since childhood when you grew up in Nakskov. That is where my grandmother is from too, by the way.

04:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And throughout your marriage, and also while raising six kids, you finally made the adventures a reality at a later stage in life, and you went to many areas of the world that were conflict-ridden. You describe why in the book, but tell our listeners why you decided to go to these places and not Hawaii, for instance.

04:49
Anna Eckhoff
When I was a child, I had an uncle, and he lived in Vancouver in Canada most of his life. But he had also been around the world with the East Asiatic Company and ended up in a Japanese prison camp in Hong Kong. And he was somehow a role model for me. He was always energetic and adventurous. And then I had an aunt in Chicago, Moster Royser, she was called. And I have been told she played poker with Al Capone. So she was somehow also adventurous.

05:22
Anna Eckhoff
I got inspired by them. It's my nature. I think it's part of my genes, too, that I like adventures and exciting things. And I don't think Hawaii would be something for me. It had to be the war zones. Most of the terror attacks in the world take place in the Middle East. So I thought I had to go there.

05:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
IT manager does not sound as exciting as going abroad. How did you decide to become an IT manager?

05:49
Anna Eckhoff
Because when I had all these children, the six children, I was at home in Denmark, and IT, that was a new thing. When I started to work in 1972 or '73, IT was developing. And women and men, they were having the same salaries. So it was equal rights for women in the IT branch, so I decided to go for IT.

06:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You describe your longing when you were a child as a trembling longing. I think I know what that means to long for something that much that you're trembling. I had a similar thing when I was a child. But you also had a longing to have kids. How did those two longings manage to coexist in your life?

06:41
Anna Eckhoff
They couldn't coexist, I think. I think it's a huge problem for young women because normally they will go abroad when they are young and experience life and then they will come back when they are in their mid-30s and it would be difficult to start a family life when they come back.

06:59
Anna Eckhoff
And I did it the other way around. I started with my family life, got my children, six children. My husband, he was sick for almost 10 years. I didn't expect him to die. And then when my husband died and I only had two children left, I could choose my own life and go abroad. So I first had the family life and afterwards this adventure is an exciting life.

07:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You became a widow at 48. So your life is divided into two phases?

07:29
Anna Eckhoff
Yes, that's correct.

07:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Being in Sudan, you described this as being on a honeymoon. I don't think a lot of our listeners would think of being in a conflict area to be very romantic. What was it that made you feel this way about it?

07:45
Anna Eckhoff
We lived in the Nuba mountains, really in the middle of Sudan. There were a lot of hills and you had different types of people. You got to know different types of people. A lot of black people and you heard a lot about culture. Sometimes you were sitting with a local staff around the table in our camp and we were talking about how they perceived life and how we did it was totally different. So I liked that.

08:12
Anna Eckhoff
And I liked to talk with adults because when I was at home in Denmark, I always had the mother role. So you say, you do this, little Peter, and you do that, little Dorte. But now I had an adult role so I could speak with other expats in a totally different way than I used to speak with my children. And that was nice too.

08:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is it that drives you towards getting to know about different cultures? You mentioned being in Sudan, getting to know the people. What do you think it is about that that makes it so exciting for you to explore?

08:46
Anna Eckhoff
I am an administration manager. I'm supposed to sit in an office and not experience anything. But my father was very interested in history. When I'm there, I study the country. What is it? What was going on in the Nuba Mountains? I didn't know when I came, but it was North Sudan fighting South Sudan at that time. And you get to know the history of the country and why they are fighting.

09:10
Anna Eckhoff
What was the history with the Brits having control of Sudan and the slaves and everything? And I think that's interesting. So I think part of it is that I like to hear about the history. And then also a little bit of the smell of the country. Every time you come to a new place it's a different smell, this different feeling. And I like that too.

09:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You were in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. And you write about mines, roadside bombs, corruption, smuggling money, AK-47s, and the possibility of being kidnapped. How did you deal with the fear that must be part of experiencing all these life and death situations? How does one normalize it, the fear? I assume it's part of daily life.

10:00
Anna Eckhoff
In the beginning, when I came, especially to Iraq, in the southern part of Iraq, it was extremely dangerous at that time. Iraq was the most dangerous country in the world. And sometimes, I experienced panic attacks. A few times, when we had this roadside bomb and we were going to choose one of three roads, we chose first a road where a soldier died at the same time as we should have been there. But we were lucky in the last moment to choose another road.

10:31
Anna Eckhoff
And I was really scared at that time and almost got a panic attack. And I also had a doctor who was tortured and killed working for us in that camp. And that also made me panic. But then you get training, you get Hostile Environment Awareness Training, HEAT courses, where you learn how to behave in this hostile environment, where you learn to react to different kinds of dangers.

11:02
Anna Eckhoff
You go out in a field and you play that it's real life and you are attacked by terrorist groups and you are beaten up and you meet refugees and they want to use you in a bad way. And there's a lot of things going on, and you learn how to react in this environment. So if this is a situation you just react as you have learned to react. And I think you become calm. And I've been in the restaurant in Kabul, where we had a Taliban attack and I was totally calm.

11:35
Anna Eckhoff
When I was on HEAT training, the first time it took a week up in Norway. And since I've been two or three times on HEAT training with EU missions. So I really have been learning how to do things in the right way. I don't know if I will always react in the right way, but I think I'm mentally trained to somehow be okay.

11:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Did you ever not react according to protocol? Did you ever sort of lose it and do exactly the opposite of what you were supposed to do? Sorry to ask you that question.

12:09
Anna Eckhoff
Only when we had training sessions. If it were real situations, I reacted correctly.

12:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You were also smuggling dollars into Iraq at a time when it was a war zone. How does a woman in her late 50s do this?

12:25
Anna Eckhoff
I was smuggling $150,000 each month from Kuwait to Iraq. And because I was a woman, the border guard in Iraq, they could not search me because they would never search a woman and they didn't have any female border guards. So it was much safer for me to carry all this money across the border than it would be for a man. And I also think somehow my age is good because they respect age in the Middle East, not whether you're good at doing something, but if you are old.

13:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And how did you do it? How was the feeling when you did that? Driving across the border, where did you have the money?

13:08
Anna Eckhoff
In my pocket. They could search my suitcase or my bag, but they could not body search me. So I always was having all this money in my pocket. And it was $1 pieces and $5 pieces because we had to pay salaries with this money. So it had to be small pieces of money too.

13:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And there was never one moment where they wanted to search you or they told you to get out of the car or something where you felt like, oh, it's getting close.

13:38
Anna Eckhoff
I did get out of the car, but it was still not allowed to search me. So I was never afraid of that. But 2006 and 2007 were some of the most dangerous years in Iraq. And at the end of 2007, the Danes moved out of Iraq, and I think the Brits also started withdrawing from Iraq. It became really, really dangerous to be there. And sometimes I asked actually the Danish military if they could fly our money from Kuwait to Iraq to avoid having to transport them through the customs. So they did that a couple of times for me.

14:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
When you reflect on the main things that you learned about life on your humanitarian adventures around the world, what have you learned about humans and the human condition from your experiences?

14:35
Anna Eckhoff
Expats live in very isolated environments because of the danger in the country. It's a security situation, so you cannot walk on the street in many of these countries. And you cannot go shopping. You cannot go to restaurants. You can't do anything. So you live together and you work together.

14:54
Anna Eckhoff
And of course, when you're always together, you get crises and conflicts and all kinds of problems. So I have learned it's difficult, and it's difficult to live together like that. And we did have a lot of conflicts. At one time when I was working for a Norwegian organization, I asked my sister if she could be my mentor and coach.

15:21
Anna Eckhoff
She was in Nakskov where I come from. She was like the peacekeeper and I was the warrior. I asked her if she could teach me how to behave in a good way. I don't think you can change personality, but at least you can change your behavior. So she taught me how to communicate and how to solve conflicts and be a better person, be more robust, be more extroverted than I used to be. I survived 15 years in this environment, so that's quite something, I think.

15:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I think it is. What made your sister qualified to give you this advice?

16:02
Anna Eckhoff
My sister, she worked in Washington, DC and she was employed by the IMF. And because she has this diplomatic nature, she's always very diplomatic. She says always the right things. I think she had the qualifications to give me advice. And I always talked with her when I had problems, and I almost talked every day with her for three, four years.

16:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You went on your adventures with idealism in your baggage. Is it still there?

16:35
Anna Eckhoff
I went for my own sake, because I wanted this adventure, and not because I wanted to do something good for the population in the Middle East and Afghanistan. I found what I really wanted to live for in these frontlines. I really enjoyed being there. And the reason why I asked my sister to help me change my behavior was of course because I didn't want them to send me home. And I needed some advice on how to survive these 15 years I stayed there. I never, never regretted leaving Denmark and going abroad.

17:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You talk a lot about handling conflict in the book. What are the main lessons you've learned?

17:21
Anna Eckhoff
I remember one episode in Sudan, where I was upset about a decision my program manager had done together with another colleague, and it was about passports and visas that was my responsibility. And they were planning to do something I totally disagreed with. I told them off, and then I turned around right away, and went away.

17:49
Anna Eckhoff
And after that, my program manager, he came to me, and he said to me, Anna, you can't just walk away when we have a conflict. You have to be there and take the confrontation. People get confused when you just go away. So, I learned somehow that I had to be standing there and take the confrontation even if it was difficult. It works much better if you do that. That's my experience.

18:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did it change your view on Denmark and life in Denmark and more generally life in the Western world after you'd been on these trips? Maybe we should include the US in our perspective.

18:32
Anna Eckhoff
I think we internationals sometimes are extremely naive when we travel abroad. I think, for example, when we went to Afghanistan, we wanted women to work because they were not allowed to work before the Americans came. But we don't consider that women in Afghanistan, they have been totally separated from men in school and if you go to a wedding, the women would sit in one room and the men would sit in another room.

19:05
Anna Eckhoff
And then when we say, now you can work, we put them together in the workplace. I saw girls in my office holding hands with Afghan men in the office, and you don't do that in Afghanistan. And I saw cleaners inviting drivers into a room, and you don't do that in Afghanistan.

19:25
Anna Eckhoff
So I feel that we are naive, that we just think that these countries in the Middle East and Afghanistan are the same as we are in Europe and in America. We should really think about what culture is it we have here.

19:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And returning to Denmark and seeing Denmark with the eyes of a woman who's been outside the country, how did Denmark look to you when you returned? Or how did it appear, the society, the people, the culture?

19:55
Anna Eckhoff
I think somehow Denmark is okay. What I experienced before I left Denmark — because I was a widow, social wise, I was invited out by friends as couples when my husband lived, but when he died, I started being invited out to women's clubs. But when I returned to Denmark after having been abroad for many years, they started to invite me to Saturday night couple parties again. It was really strange, and I think it's because I have broadened my perspective and was more interesting to talk to, but I don't know.

20:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Had Denmark changed, from your perspective, when you came back?

20:36
Anna Eckhoff
No. Not really, no.

20:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You point out many times throughout the book that you were not a young woman when you went abroad, and you did experience quite a lot of sexism and ageism. What is your advice to us women in terms of how to deal with that and make it go away?

20:58
Anna Eckhoff
So about age, I think it's difficult. I had, like you said, two periods, the one where I had children and then family, and then I went abroad and was doing something totally different. It is extremely difficult to change jobs and career when you are in the end of the fifties. So it took me a long time and a lot of phone calls and a lot of small education things to be able to get another position in another job. It is difficult.

21:32
Anna Eckhoff
And even after four years when I had been abroad, gained a lot of experience, and I think I was quite good at my job, I applied for a job with a Norwegian organization and they didn't shortlist me. So I had to phone them and say why I am not shortlisted for this position? I know all about this job. And the HR woman in this organization, she looks down my application and she saw my age —

22:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which was at the time —

22:05
Anna Eckhoff
62 or something like that. And so she said it's probably because of your age. And you're not supposed to say that, but it's probably because of your age that you have not been shortlisted for the position. But the next day, because I called her, I was interviewed and I got the position. So it can be done, but you have to push a bit extra because of your age, I would say.

22:32
Anna Eckhoff
If we talk about being a woman, I never in my normal life in Denmark experienced sexism, whether you're a man or a woman, it doesn't matter for IT. It's the same. But when you come out to the Middle East, normally I have heard that it's the men who count and not the women. But I think because I was older, they respect age and I never felt I had problems because I was a woman.

23:09
Anna Eckhoff
But I know that younger women had problems sometimes, and if they gave orders, they would not be respected. One thing I also do when I'm a manager, I have an inclusive leadership style. I talk with the local staff and discuss the solutions. Especially when we talk about the Middle East, if you give them orders, they hate that. So you can't do that. You have to discuss things with them. And I think I also tried to ask for the help of the local staff. So that helps.

23:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So your advice to women at a certain age is to push a little more than they normally would?

23:53
Anna Eckhoff
I think they should. They have to push more and they have to phone. If you want a job, you have to phone four or five times. And I think it's also one of the reasons why I only had jobs for Scandinavian NGOs. It's because I had no phone number to phone somebody in England or in the States. They don't give phone numbers away. So I could only phone Scandinavian organizations.

24:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So in general, you were very pushy and aggressive in getting what you wanted.

24:25
Anna Eckhoff
That's correct. You have to be.

24:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You were on your missions when the Mohammed crisis happened, as we call it in Denmark. The Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published some drawings of the prophet, which we are now fully aware is highly offensive and more than highly offensive to Muslims. It created a major reaction in Muslim societies.

24:51
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How does it feel when your flag is getting burned, you're in a conflict zone and it's getting burned and it's becoming difficult to wear the Danish flag on your uniform? How does one feel and react in a situation like that? It must have been quite, I don't know, scary. It must have been overwhelming.

25:12
Anna Eckhoff
When I came to Iraq, it was just after the Mohammed crisis. The word "Danish" was stripped from all our jackets. There was nothing saying Danish on our jackets. No flags, no nothing. But when I crossed the border from Kuwait to Iraq, you still had the Danish passport. And I remember I was so scared when I was going to show my passport to the border guy there.

25:39
Anna Eckhoff
And I somehow excused it — It's a bad country, I said, or something like that. And he didn't react really. And I was wondering if he couldn't read what nationality I had, maybe he couldn't. Maybe they could only read Arabic letters, I don't know. But he didn't react. Or, it was so far out in the countryside, so he didn't react. But I was a bit scared the first time I came, but not afterwards, no.

26:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did you experience it, close hand, apart from the situation?

26:13
Anna Eckhoff
They were so angry at us. And I experienced a little bit of the same thing. I was visiting Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in July last year. And suddenly there was one of the men, and I was interviewing him about how they were living and all these things. And suddenly he raised his voice and talked about us and these Mohammed things again. And he was so angry at us.

26:40
Anna Eckhoff
You know, we were burning also the Quran. And then somebody told me that Lars Løkke Rasmussen, he was planning to make a special law where we would forbid this burning of the Quran, and I told the man that, and then he relaxed again.

26:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It means a lot to them, I assume.

26:59
Anna Eckhoff
I think so too.

27:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Since we are in the US, you have a very special relationship to this country. You were here as a young woman and in the book you described driving up Highway 1, which is on the coast with a beautiful view of the ocean. It's a very scenic highway here in California.

27:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you were listening to The Mamas & The Papas, a song called "California Dreamin'." Tell us what you remember, which kind of memories does this trip and being in California as a young woman bring to you?

27:34
Anna Eckhoff
I was having a job in a bank in San Diego for two months. It was a student exchange job. It was the time of the Vietnam War, and a lot of Navy people were staying down in San Diego, and every Saturday night they invited girls like me to parties, because there were only men. We were girls, so we came to these Saturday night parties with the officers. I remember I went to La Jolla Beach every weekend.

28:07
Anna Eckhoff
And I had bought this car, a Ford 56. Later on, I was driving this Ford 56 from San Diego up to my uncle in Vancouver, and it was a fantastic trip. And then on the middle of the road, I remember my car started going slower and slower. And I thought my car was getting tired. So I rolled into a gas station and said my car was tired. And then they found out it was the transmission oil missing. So I was lucky I was having that fixed and I made it to Vancouver.

28:40
Anna Eckhoff
But I also remember that it was the year of 1969, where the astronauts went on the moon. And this girl I stayed with for two months, I met her the day before yesterday in Los Angeles. She came to see me and I haven't seen her for more than 50 years, but we have stayed in touch for 50 years without seeing each other. It's quite fantastic, isn't it?

29:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That is fantastic. What were those soldiers like, meeting all these American soldiers?

29:13
Anna Eckhoff
It was very pleasant. I mean, for girls like me, it was, yeah, I met the Navy people and I met a Marine also. I think they were in Oceanside. So I also went to parties with generals and it was just an exciting life for young girls like me to be here at that time.

29:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And for the listeners' sake, I can tell you that she has a big smile on her face right now. Your kids were also exchange students in either the US or Canada. What is this connection in your family to North America?

29:49
Anna Eckhoff
I think it was my oldest, Dorte. She wanted probably to get away from the family, I could imagine, and experience something else. She saved money for two years. All my six children paid for their own trips to this student exchange, the high school exchange program. They were babysitters, they were walking with newspapers and anything to get to America. And I think because the first one did it, then the next one also had to do it and then they all came to America.

30:20
Anna Eckhoff
And I think it has been great to have them in the US and I think they experienced a lot and they were really developed when they were here. It was a totally different culture in a totally different country, but I think it was good. And I'm so sorry that my grandchildren today, they don't go to America on this high school exchange program. They go to efterskole, I don't know what it's called in English, but after school. You go after class nine, you go to a place where you're together with other Danes, but you don't learn the same thing as my children did by being here in America.

30:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Where did they go? Which states did they go to?

31:02
Anna Eckhoff
Dorte went to Wisconsin, and Lise went to Illinois, I think, and Peter went to Washington State, and Johan went to Canada, and my two youngest daughters went to Washington, DC. I just think that they've developed a lot. And I asked my son why his daughter doesn't go to America instead of going to this after school thing. And he's a little bit nervous about what is going on in America. Sometimes this school shooting, he says maybe Danish young people don't want to go to America because of this.

31:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, the fear of school shootings in the US is a real thing. And what have the reactions to your book been like when you presented it to audiences here? What have they wanted to talk to you about?

31:53
Anna Eckhoff
Last year, I was here on a book tour in September. When I went to Washington, DC and New York last time, I also talked about Israel / Palestine, and that was before 7th of October. And I talked about the conflicts there. I had been living in the occupied territory. So I know a lot about it and read a lot about it. I worked for an organization working with the Palestinians in occupied territories. I have met with Middle East institutions in Washington.

32:25
Anna Eckhoff
This time, it's very much about my life, and these things we have been talking about here, that I have all these children, and I'm very old when I go abroad, and the challenges of going from a life in Denmark to going to a life in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

32:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned at one point in the book that you were nervous that you would become a gray and sad mouse as an older lady with a ton of grandkids. But not every woman can go abroad and do what you did. What is your suggestion for women who cannot do what you did to avoid becoming gray and sad?

33:07
Anna Eckhoff
I had some dreams. I had this dream of a big family and adventures and exciting life. But it might not be the dreams of all women. I think women could have, probably have, some other dreams. I wrote this book to inspire other people, not only women, but men and women to go after their dreams.

33:30
Anna Eckhoff
I think you might have a little bit of rocky times when you go from the life you have now to that life you want to have. But in the end, you will be much more satisfied and have a much better life if you follow your dreams, and that's my opinion. That way you would not be a gray mouse or a grumpy woman sitting on a couch or anything like that.

33:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Good advice. You're in your 70s now. 70 is the new 50 and you're very energetic and young at heart. I can sense that. What does the rest of your life look like if you can choose?

34:11
Anna Eckhoff
I would still like to travel a lot. I want to see the Kalahari Desert and I want to see Palestinian refugees again. I want to see the Middle East again. But I know, when you are in the 70s, you might be okay, but when you are in the 80s, it gets more and more difficult to travel. So I might end up sitting on the couch and being a grumpy woman because I can't travel anymore.

34:44
Anna Eckhoff
But what I have done in Denmark, I have joined a club in Allerød where I live, and this club is called the Blixen club and it's women 60+ and we are meeting every other week and hear about sicknesses and books and all kinds of things. That's one thing I've done. And then I am also a member of the Danish Foreign Policy Society. And I meet people there with the same interest as I have in foreign policies.

35:18
Anna Eckhoff
And I have joined two trips. They had one to France, where Macron was elected, and one to the Faroe Islands. So now I get to know the people on a social level, too. So when we meet and hear other lessons, I have friends there I can speak to. And then I also joined the Danish Author Association, you know, authors club, and they're very different from me, I tell you that, but they're also very nice people.

35:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And the club that you mentioned, Blixen Club, is that named after another adventurer, Karen Blixen?

35:53
Anna Eckhoff
Yes, it is.

35:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you so much for participating in Danish Originals, Anna. We really appreciate it.

36:02
Anna Eckhoff
Thank you very much for inviting me.

36:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Anna Eckhoff chose Vilhelm Hammershøi's Stue i Strandgade med solskin på gulvet or Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor from 1901 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.